Optimizing Workflows: Four Essential Steps to Boost Team Productivity

Tonya D: 0:00

You ever feel like there's a better way to do your processes, like you have a workflow and it works, but for some reason, you feel like you could be doing it just a little bit better. If that is the case, you are going to enjoy today's episode, but first I want to welcome you to the Operations Toolbox for Business Leaders. I'm your host, Tonya D, and I am excited to have you join me today. For those of you that have been following me for a while, you know that I really love operations all things operations and I love sharing some of those tips during this podcast. So, whether you are a leader for the first time or you're just looking to refine your leadership skills, this podcast is your go-to resource for actionable insights and strategies and strategies. Now, as a team leader, one of the many, many, many, many responsibilities you have is making sure you and your team are as productive as possible, and today we are going to take a deep dive into a topic that is extremely, extremely important when it comes to building high-performing teams. What we're going to talk about today workflow optimization. We're going to explore methods for analyzing and improving team workflows to enhance efficiency and productivity. Let's go ahead and get started.

Tonya D: 1:43

First things first. Before we dive in too deep, let's talk about what a workflow is. I want to make sure that we are all operating under the same definition. Simply put, a workflow is a sequence of steps to help you go from point A to point B. For your team, it's a series of steps that they will take to complete a project, a goal. Examples of that could be, if you're in healthcare, patient registration what happens from the time the client or patient comes through the door to the time they complete registration that's a workflow. For those of you that are in another service industry, like me, new client onboarding that's an actual workflow. What happens from point A to point B? So understanding and optimizing these workflows can make a significant difference in your team's performance.

Tonya D: 2:53

Okay, so how do you begin to streamline workflows? We're going to talk about four steps. I'm going to share these four steps with you. I'm going to go in a little bit deep and I'm going to go in a little bit deep and I'm going to go into a little bit more detail into each of these steps and before we wrap up, you already know I got to give you some homework, so you're going to have some action items to take away, because I want to make sure that we're not just taking in information, we're actually implementing it within our businesses and organizations right. So we're going to go from education to execution. That's the name of the game on this podcast. So the four steps that I'm going to talk about are number one analyze current workflows. Number two identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Number three implement improvements. And number four monitor and update. This is an ongoing theme, just so that if you haven't caught on to that, this is an ongoing theme. So let's talk about step one. Step one is analyze current workflows. Now, this step is about streamlining workflows.

Tonya D: 4:13

This first step in streamlining workflows, or optimizing workflows, is to analyze what you're currently doing Right now, today. What does that workflow look like? That is your starting point. The very first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna map out your process. Start by mapping out your current workflow patient registration, client onboarding, whatever that workflow is and to do this, you want to use tools that are you know, that will visualize each step. For instance, if you are someone that uses Microsoft, you may use a Visio flowchart. If you're someone that uses Google, you may use a tool called Lucid chart. There's all different types of tools out there. Get one that works for you. If you already have one, you want to go ahead and use that when you are mapping out your workflow.

Tonya D: 5:12

What you want to do is you want to include every task that's being done. You want to include the individual, or the individual's title, that's responsible for that task and I like to do titles just in case that person moves or is no longer with the organization. You don't have to go back and revamp everything, because it's the actual role of the person that's performing that task. And then you want to include decision points. So, for example, if we're talking about patient registration, you could say does the patient have insurance, yes or no? That's a decision point. You want to include all of those when you're mapping out your processes.

Tonya D: 5:58

The second element when we're talking about analyzing your current workflow, you want to make sure you gather data. So you want to collect data on how long each step takes. This is important, right? Because this is going to help you to go back and identify possible delays, right? So where are those delays occurring? And then understanding how long it takes to complete that flow. You also want to identify any resources that are being used when you are performing that task, this data. It will help you to understand the current state of your workflow. And then the last thing you want to do is you want to engage your team, so you want to talk to your team members. They are the ones that are on the front lines. They're the ones that are probably doing this task or this workflow over and over again, so they are going to provide some very valuable insights into the workflow. They'll be able to share with you some of the pain points and some areas for improvement, as well as some things that they feel work extremely well. That's step number one.

Tonya D: 7:08

Step number two we're going to identify Now, because we are creatures of habit. Sometimes we fall into routines of doing things because we've always done it that way and it's easy to do. Because of that, we really want to take a step back and look and see what we can identify in terms of bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Within this step, we have three key elements that I want to focus on. The first is task redundancies. Are there steps that are no longer needed, they're unnecessary or they may be duplicated? Right, because if we streamline these, we can save time and resources immediately. The other element is delays. We want to identify where delays are happening. This is one of the reasons why, when we were blowing out the workflow, we included how long it takes us to do each of these tasks. This will help us to identify if there are some bottlenecks that need to be addressed. The third key element is resource allocation. When we're thinking about resource allocation, we want to make sure that the right people are assigned to the right task. Sometimes inefficiencies can arise simply because tasks are not matched with the team members best suited to handle them. They may not have the skills to do it. We may not be playing to their strengths. We want to take all of those things into consideration when we're talking about identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Tonya D: 8:48

The third step when we're talking about optimizing your workflows, is to implement improvements. We have identified our starting point and mapped out our process, our workflow right, and we've gone through the process of analyzing it and identifying some of those bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Now we want to come up with solutions that we can implement for improvement right. So we want to, number one, simplify processes. We want to eliminate unnecessary steps and combine tasks wherever possible. Earlier, we talked about the possibility of having duplicate steps or unnecessary steps. So here is where you're going to start that simplification process of removing some of those things.

Tonya D: 9:37

The second thing that you want to do is you want to automate Wherever possible. You want to make sure you are automating, and this could be by utilizing certain tools that you're not utilizing now, whether it's some type of software or some type of digital solution or project management software, whatever it is, there may be opportunities to kind of automate some of the things. One thing that we did with a client right, a lot of people, small business owners. One of the things that they do is they create folders on the Google Drive when they're onboarding clients. Well, we implemented an automated way, so we identified a trigger. When this trigger occurs, it automatically creates a folder on the drive. So think about little things like that. Explore as much as possible.

Tonya D: 10:34

The last piece, the last key element of this step, is to standardize best practices. If you've been following me for any length of time, you know I'm really big when it comes to standard operating procedures. You want to make sure that you are documenting these things in a document that everybody can review. So if I'm the one that is tasked with performing a lot of these tasks within this workflow. Now we have a documented procedure where, if I'm not there, I'm not available somebody else can come in and they can pick it up and they can do it. We want to make sure these things are documented.

Tonya D: 11:14

Step number four is monitor and adjust. Right. So now we've done all of the work. We want to make sure that we are monitoring what we've implemented. The first thing you want to do is set metrics. Identify any key performance indicators that you could use to measure your workflow improvement. For instance, you may know that patient registration at one point took an hour. By measuring it, you may now identify that now it takes 30 minutes. So you know that that is one way that your workflow improvements are working. Same thing with client onboarding workflow improvements are working. Same thing with client onboarding. It may have taken two days to onboard a client and now we're down to a day, or now we're down to an hour, whatever that looks like. So that is a good way to measure. Now we want to know that we.

Tonya D: 12:12

I want to make sure you understand that when we're talking about time savings, right Time savings equates to reduced costs. Now you have people that can do other tasks. It also helps to increase productivity. The other way that you can measure your improvements is by having regular check-ins. You want to schedule check-ins with your team to get their feedback, to find out how they feel this is going. Again, these are the people that are doing it on a regular basis. Who better else to share information with you? You want to understand is it working as intended? Are there any new issues that have been uncovered? Sometimes, when our goal is to fix one thing, we actually uncover another issue in another area. Having those conversations with your team is going to let you know how that's going.

Tonya D: 13:09

The last piece is continuous improvement. Now, this is an ongoing thing. When we're talking about optimizing anything, when we're talking about optimization, it's an ongoing process, so we need to be prepared to continuously review it, make adjustments to improve as we go along the way. So those are the four steps when we're talking about optimizing workflows that you want to make sure you are going through. But remember, before we go, before we go, this is one of those podcasts where you're gonna take back some actionable items and I wanna talk to you about some next steps. How can you take this and implement it in your department or in your business immediately, right? So we want to start small, if this isn't something that you've done before.

Tonya D: 14:01

The first thing you want to do is pick one workflow I know sometimes we want to do it all at one time Pick one workflow and map it out. Make sure it is a critical workflow. You want to make sure it's something that is extremely important to you and your team and you want to map it out, then schedule a team meeting. You want to engage with your team in a discussion about the current workflow and get their insights, get their input. Again, they are usually the ones that are doing this on a regular basis and then I want you to identify at least one bottleneck Now you're guaranteed to have more than one, but identify at least one bottleneck, pinpoint at least one inefficiency and then brainstorm some potential solutions.

Tonya D: 14:57

Then I want you to actually implement a solution, right? So we're going to do some beta testing. You're going to implement something and it's a small change. It doesn't have to be anything major. You're going to implement it and then you are going to sit back and review the workflow and you're going to see how it goes and review the workflow and you're going to see how it goes. So, once you implement it, I would wait at least a week, regroup with your team and then get some additional feedback right. So, as you're monitoring it, you want to make sure that you identify if there's any adjustments that need to be made right. So one thing we want to do is we want to make sure that we're not causing major problems within the business. So you definitely want to stay on top of this and monitor it, get that feedback, make the adjustments and keep moving.

Tonya D: 15:47

All right, so that is it for today's episode on optimizing workflows. I hope you found these tips useful and I hope that you are ready to take action with your team. Remember, improving workflows is a continuous journey, but with the right approach, you can enhance efficiency and productivity significantly. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your thoughts and if there are any topics that you'd like us to cover in the future, let me know. Thanks for tuning in to the Operations Toolbox for Business Leaders. Until next time, keep leading with efficiency and purpose. Have a great day.